Karl Tschuppik: The journalistic oeuvre

Over four decades and three systems of government Karl Tschuppik (1876-1937) wrote discerning commentaries on Austrian affairs from a (sociopolitically) liberal middle-class point of view. Some of the journalists positions were editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Prager Tagblatt (19101917), editor-in-chief of the Viennese daily paper Die Stunde (19231926), or managing editor of the Berlin weekly paper Montag Morgen (19271933). He was also much in demand as a contributor to periodicals as renowned as Frankfurter Zeitung, Literarische Welt (Berlin), Tage-Buch (Berlin), or Querschnitt (Berlin). His contemporaries were unanimous about Mr. Tschuppiks outstanding importance as a journalist and writer. Ever since 1982, when Klaus Amann compiled 62 of his articles in a single volume (Karl Tschuppik: Von Franz Joseph zu Adolf Hitler), it has become clear that nobody taking an interest in the general political and social framework of the Austrian interwar period can ignore Tschuppik. A personal bibliography which was recently established (Karl Tschuppika bio- bibliographic approach, FWF project P 32360-G) comprises 2500 articles scattered across 75 places of publication. It paves the way toward this long-overdue comprehensive edition. The journalistic oeuvre will make Mr. Tschuppiks writings that were printed in newspapers and periodicals accessibleto the scientific community as well as to the public. All writings are presented as they were first printed and in strictly chronological order. The edition is published as an economical study edition with concise annotations. It will add a key journalist of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the First Republic, and Austrofascism to the canon and will thus make amends to an uncomfortable spirit who had totally wrongfully fallen into obliviona spirit who had courageously been warning during the interwar years against a danger to democracy and parliamentarianism, against the destruction of European civilization. A persistent theme of Tschuppiks journalistic work was his defense of the notion of Austria while vehemently drawing a line against the Austrofascist ideology of a German cultural nation which considered Austria to be the second German state. Another persistent theme of his journalistic work was his person being antagonized by the camp of völkisch nationalists. Indeed, his name appeared on the very first blacklist of harmful and undesirable writings drawn up by the Nazis in 1933.